Description: Since our move to Smithsonian Institution Support Center, in the fall of 2015, the Archives have been able to work on longer-term projects using the photographic negatives stored in our cold storage vault. One of these projects is systematically scanning the collection of glass plate negatives from the United States National Museum, Division of Graphic Arts Photograph
Description: An employee of the Smithsonian since 1975, Michael Barnes is one of a select group of photographers with the responsibility of documenting the history of the Smithsonian.1 Pragmatic and passionate about photography, he worked his way up from the Smithsonian’s print shop and taught himself the art of taking pictures. An employee of the Smithsonian since 1975, Michael Barnes is
Description: At the Archives we get to see hundreds and hundreds (technically ~3 million if we wanted) images and photographs. We sometimes lose focus (ahh, get it) of all the amazing people behind the lens.National Photograph Month at the Archives
Description: Formal portrait photographs of scientists tend to preserve the stiffness of the moment, rather than capture the sitter’s personality. Perhaps that is the reason that candid photographs of celebrities like Albert Einstein stick in public memory.A 1931 photograph of three Nobel laureate physicists illustrates why we tend to remember the informal photos of scientists more than